I have some doozies, but I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica so keep that in mind. I lived in, at the time, the only middle class neighborhood in the whole city and it was right across the gully from a shanty town straight out of a feed the children commercial. My dad worked for a relief organization that helped bring in supplies to areas in the Caribbean that had been hit by natural disasters. Jamaica had been hit by a really big hurricane and we were picking up supplies from a warehouse and taking them to be distributed elsewhere. A mob had formed in front of the warehouse trying to get past the guards and ransack the place (these were not hungry people who had been without food for a week, they were looking to loot the supplies and sell them for profit). The military was doing a good job of keeping them at bay, but they surrounded our van and broke out the back window as we were leaving. Two guards with M16s came running and cleared the area around our van so we could leave.

One night, my dad was gone overnight. We had bars on the windows and all the doors and both the back door, the front door and the porch had locking gates. We heard a noise from the front of the house, then a dog barking and snarling and yelping. We found the front door and the porch door both had their locks broken the next morning. The only thing that saved us was we had befriended a stray dog who lived in the neighborhood, feeding and taking care of it. He attacked whoever was breaking into the house, sustaining a very ugly wound in the process. Without him, mom and I probably wouldn't be here.

We also saw a mob wielding machetes chase a man up the hill. You do not mess with the big mama's on the island and there was a whole lot of them chasing this guy. Not really sure what happened but he never did come back down that hill.

Way back in the 70's we lived on a little street that ended at the post office parking lot where they parked their vehicles. One day we came home and were going into the house when we heard an odd whistling noise, then a big bang. We were told that someone put some kind of explosive into one of the gas tanks and blew the truck up. That was scary!

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I've never knitted anything I could recognize when it was finished. Actually, I've never finished anything, much to my family's relief.

A few months ago we were sitting in our living room watching tv when the flashing of red and blue lights caught our attention. We live across the street from an ice cream shop and there were paramedics going in there, as well as cops. We couldn't really see inside well enough to see what was going on and we didn't want to get in their way by going over there. Eventually they brought someone out on a gurney and put them into the ambulance.

We figured our neighbors were somehow involved since the guy was talking to the officers and paramedics.

As it turns out, their friend who had been staying with them for a while had chest pains earlier that day and despite neighbor's wife encouraging him to see a doctor, he kept saying "Naw, I'm fine" but she kept after him so much that he eventually said that if it didn't stop by 8 he'd go to Urgent Care.

Well he went across the street for a drink and a milkshake for neighbor and while he was over there, he had a massive heart attack, collapsed and hit his head. He died on the way to the ER, I believe, was brought back and died again, for good. I didn't know the guy very well but felt bad for the neighbor, since it turned out this guy was one of his closest friends.

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Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

A few months ago we were sitting in our living room watching tv when the flashing of red and blue lights caught our attention. We live across the street from an ice cream shop and there were paramedics going in there, as well as cops. We couldn't really see inside well enough to see what was going on and we didn't want to get in their way by going over there. Eventually they brought someone out on a gurney and put them into the ambulance.

We figured our neighbors were somehow involved since the guy was talking to the officers and paramedics.

As it turns out, their friend who had been staying with them for a while had chest pains earlier that day and despite neighbor's wife encouraging him to see a doctor, he kept saying "Naw, I'm fine" but she kept after him so much that he eventually said that if it didn't stop by 8 he'd go to Urgent Care.

Well he went across the street for a drink and a milkshake for neighbor and while he was over there, he had a massive heart attack, collapsed and hit his head. He died on the way to the ER, I believe, was brought back and died again, for good. I didn't know the guy very well but felt bad for the neighbor, since it turned out this guy was one of his closest friends.

That's so sad...

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When angels go bad, they go worse than anyone. Remember, Lucifer was an angel. ~The Marquis De Carabas

A few months ago we were sitting in our living room watching tv when the flashing of red and blue lights caught our attention. We live across the street from an ice cream shop and there were paramedics going in there, as well as cops. We couldn't really see inside well enough to see what was going on and we didn't want to get in their way by going over there. Eventually they brought someone out on a gurney and put them into the ambulance.

We figured our neighbors were somehow involved since the guy was talking to the officers and paramedics.

As it turns out, their friend who had been staying with them for a while had chest pains earlier that day and despite neighbor's wife encouraging him to see a doctor, he kept saying "Naw, I'm fine" but she kept after him so much that he eventually said that if it didn't stop by 8 he'd go to Urgent Care.

Well he went across the street for a drink and a milkshake for neighbor and while he was over there, he had a massive heart attack, collapsed and hit his head. He died on the way to the ER, I believe, was brought back and died again, for good. I didn't know the guy very well but felt bad for the neighbor, since it turned out this guy was one of his closest friends.

That's so sad...

I know. This couple live to the right of us and are so very nice. They're a middle aged couple with some health issues of their own, but they're almost always in such good spirits.

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Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

I remember the night my neighbor went into the hospital. He'd been battling cancer for a while, but still seemed fairly healthy.

I was visiting my parents house, as I had my own apartment at the time. We were sitting down talking about our days after dinner and we heard sirens and there were lights everywhere. Paramedics, fire trucks, and local police.

He had suffered from a major stroke and his live-in girlfriend had called the paramedics. He passed at the hospital within the week. He'd been my neighbor for years, since I was a little girl, and was sad that my job wouldn't even give me the option to switch shifts to go to the funeral. It was a busy time of year, and the only other person in my position was just out of training and wouldn't be able to handle my schedule for the day. So sad.

many years ago (about 14 years ago) we lived in an apartment block. One night we were woken to sirens and the strobeing of fire truck lights. It turns out the guy across the way fell asleep while smoking and set his couch on fire. The strange thing was, when the fire men entered, the found the front door open. The guy swears that the door (a heavy solid thing too) was closed. The open door was the only thing that saved him from dying from smoke inhalation.

Some years ago, a wildlife rehab friend of mine told me that a couple of her volunteers, Katie and Dawn, wanted to adopt an aquatic turtle. I had one up for grabs so I gave them a call and was pleased to learn that they lived in the same rural area I do. Arrangements were made and I went over to their place with the turtle and met all of their critters. They had two of the most affectionate cats I've ever run into: they were in my lap giving me kisses for most of the visit.

Katie and Dawn also came over to my place several times to meet my animals and to get some help with some software Katie was using for a project. The two weren't really people that I would become BFFs with, but they were nice enough and were really, really good with animals. They'd also done a lot of work - building cages and such - for my rehab friend and were very reliable volunteers.

My husband and I decided that if we ever went on vacation we'd ask them to house sit for us.

Over the next few years we had contact with Katie and Dawn off and on and also heard about them through the rehab friend.

Nope. They dug up the property the two used to live on but didn't find a body. He's almost certainly dead, as Katie/Skye's foster sister said that Katie had told her the kid had had an "accident" at that house. No telling where his body is, though.

As an aside, my husband is a civilian employee of a law enforcement agency and he was required to report to his superiors that his wife had been consorting with serial killers.

A few years ago my DH took out the trash. I heard him call my name, so I walked out. He pointed out heavy smoke coming from the area near the entrance to our neighborhood. At first I thought the wooded area was on fire, only to learn upon closer inspection that it was a furniture store. It was the fiercest, angriest, most roaring fire I've ever seen. News crews gathered there and more fire trucks than I've ever seen in one place.

During the London riots a couple of years ago, a popular local furniture store - a family business that had been going for something like 150 years - was inexplicably razed to the ground. Those places really burn. I've never seen anything like the ferocity.

The whole time was very dramatic and scary. I'll never forget following it on the news as neighbourhoods near me got done over wondering if we were going to be next. My neighbourhood was mostly spared, although it was happening all around it. There was a little damage the next day, but nothing even remotely on the scale as the damage in Croydon or Tottenham.

London gets a bad press for violence and crime, but you mostly don't see it and just go about your life. This on the other hand was different. It just suddenly all exploded as people rampaged through neighbourhood after neighbourhood. All we could do was stay locked up at home in the flat and hope nobody saw fit to set fire to it.

Nope. They dug up the property the two used to live on but didn't find a body. He's almost certainly dead, as Katie/Skye's foster sister said that Katie had told her the kid had had an "accident" at that house. No telling where his body is, though. As an aside, my husband is a civilian employee of a law enforcement agency and he was required to report to his superiors that his wife had been consorting with serial killers.

I'm sorry. I know that's awful... but I'm imagining the paperwork and it made me laugh.

Anybody else remember Debora Green? Back in 1995 she burned her house down, with her kids in it. That was in the same suburb I grew up in. Actually, not too far from my house. Or the school I was going to at the time.

One day Sis had had a REALLY rough night the night before and couldn't sleep. She finally laid down about 4AM. Sometime around 6, there were sirens all over her apartment complex. One of the buildings burned down. Nobody was seriously hurt, but she was so zonked from not sleeping that she didn't think to call anyone in the family who recognized her apartment complex on the news, and her phone was on silent. Turns out someone decided to smoke from their balcony and just tossed the butts off the edge. Caught the bushes on fire, and due to how dry it was, the whole building was gone. They never rebuilt it.

A few years back I was driving to my best friend's house and one of the houses on the block was just a burned shell. There was police tape everywhere and a handpainted sign on plywood in the front yard that said "Family is FINE, please do not contact us right now." The foundation is now gone, it's a nice plot of grass. I still never figured out what happened there.

When I was a young girl, I had a friend down the street, "Charles". He was a few years younger than me, but quite intelligent, and his dad loved entertaining the neighborhood kids. Nothing creepy, he just loved seeing his kid getting along with other kids, even if they were a bit older. I stepped outside one summer day and told dad I was going to Charles's house. He was looking straight at me and nodded, so off I went. Charles and I were playing in the basement when police came to the door. It turns out they were doing a door to door search of the neighborhood search for me. Charles's dad had to go somewhere and he had told the babysitter that Charles was in his room, probably napping, despite him having been told by both me and Charles that we were going downstairs. She didn't actually check on him, he had been downstairs with me. Neither of our dads had heard us say what we were doing. So yeah, THAT was a good shakeup of the neighborhood.